Such Rough Splendor

by Cinda Richards

  “Mac’s going to Texas?”

  “To Gallup first. Then Texas if he has to.”

  Amelia looked up as Mac came back toward the corral. He looked so worried. She wanted to reach out to him, but she sat quietly on Killer Fred instead.

  “You got any money, Daddy?” Mac asked Pop, only briefly glancing into Amelia’s eyes. No rodeo winnings this time, she thought.

  “Not much,” Pop said, rummaging in his pockets and giving Mac what he had—not enough by the look on Mac’s face.

  “Wait,” Amelia said, sliding off Fred. “Wait!” she called again over her shoulder as she ran toward the house. She hurried to drag out her suitcase, tearing into it to get the roll of bills Bobby had given her. Mac was already in the old green truck when she came back outside. “Wait!” she called again, sticking the wad of money in through the window at him.

  “Amelia, I don’t want your money,” Mac said tiredly. “I’m not Daniel Quinn.”

  “What has Daniel got to do with anything?” Amelia’s temper flared. She should have expected this idiotic response. “It’s not mine; it’s Bobby’s. You can take a loan from him, can’t you? Semper fidelis and all that—that crap!”

  Mac pointed a finger at her.

  “Now, Amelia, don’t you start on the Marine Corps—”

  She closed her eyes in lieu of killing him. “Forgive me,” she said elaborately. “Will you take this? Bobby won it in a poker game at the barbecue. Part of it is probably yours anyway. You know Bobby—he’s already gotten this much or more off his roommates in Albuquerque.”

  Mac hesitated. She was holding out the money, but he hadn’t relaxed his killing grip on “Louise’s” steering wheel.

  “Mac, take it,” she said.

  He didn’t say anything, but he finally gave her a quick nod, a nod that reminded her of when he rodeoed and he gave the signal to his bull-riding friends to open the gate. He squeezed her fingers briefly as he took the money, and Amelia stood back as he drove the truck away, watching the cloud of dust trail down the winding road. The wind was up, buffeting her hair around and burning her face.

  “Marlene ain’t a bad person,” Pop said at her elbow. “She was a sweet little girl when she was young—but I swear, you never could trust her.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  MAC’S ABSENCE STRETCHED into the fifth day. Amelia worked on her horsemanship in the need to stay occupied, and the phone rang constantly. Twice it was Bobby in some kind of mood she couldn’t begin to fathom. He called, but he didn’t want to talk, and no, he didn’t want anything else either—no visits, no Care packages, no money. And unlike the rest of the world—the airplane people, the VAOO, the Cattlemen’s Association, and Ernie—he didn’t want to talk to Mac, which was just as well, because no one knew where he was. Amelia was exhausted from praying that every call was from him and from trying to pretend she didn’t care who telephoned.

  “Are you ready to run in place and scream?” Rita asked when Amelia had showered and changed into a fresh pair of Mac’s jeans and silky pink shirt after her daily romp with Killer Fred. “That last call was from Daniel—and don’t you say ‘Daniel who?’ either.”

  “Oh, hell!” Amelia said instead. “And don’t you tell Pop I said hell.” The last thing she needed was Daniel.

  “He’s in Chimayo. He’ll be here in a few minutes.”

  “Rita!”

  “Well, Amelia, what could I do? I’d already said you were here. He said he had to bring a shard they found to the Laboratory of Anthropology in Santa Fe for some guy’s second opinion, and as long as he was this close he’d just come by and see you—take you out to dinner or something.”

  “I don’t want to go out to dinner!”

  “No, I didn’t think you would,” Rita said patiently. “But he wouldn’t listen to me say that, and he won’t listen to you either. You know how Daniel is—”

  “Like Rupert,” Amelia said.

  “Exactly,” Rita said with a nod. “What’s a shard?”

  “A piece of pottery,” Amelia said absently, trying to decide what to do about Daniel. She could saddle up Killer Fred and make a break for it—

  A brown car with rental plates was pulling into the driveway, and Amelia gave one of her suffering-Job whimpers.

  “I know, honey,” Rita said sympathetically. “I tell you what. After you get rid of him, you and me will crack a bottle of tequila. You ever had tequila?”

  “No,” Amelia said, watching Daniel study his surroundings as he got out of the car. He was wearing his usual professor’s garb—jeans, shirt and tie, corduroy sport coat, and suede high-topped, two-eyelet boots.

  “Well, you got to have a lot of aggravation before you go drinking tequila—and I think we got it, don’t you?” she said just ahead of Daniel’s knock on the door. “A couple swigs of tequila, and you’ll think that joker is Albert Schweitzer.”

  Amelia went out to dinner after all, letting Daniel think she took the bait he offered—an “answer to her money problems.” She was curious about that, and about his unusual behavior. He was charming to Pop and Rita, for one thing, and he seemed to be somewhat wary, as if he were expecting something unpleasant.

  Mac, Amelia finally decided.

  “Are you going like that?” Daniel asked. Obviously, her faded men’s Levis, pink tuxedo shirt, and running shoes didn’t suit his taste.

  “Like what?” she asked, looking down at her clothes. She had no intention of changing.

  “Never mind,” Daniel said. “I forgot you’re in your bucolic phase. If they won’t let you in, I’ll bring you something to the car.”

  Amelia shrugged. She was in her bucolic phase; Kerry would have been “sexy as hell.”

  Daniel had made reservations at the restaurant in Chimayo, the closest place, and Amelia ordered for them, the owner recognizing her immediately as a friend of the McDades.

  “Move with the upper crust, do you, Amelia?” Daniel asked, but she only smiled. There was only one man she cared about fighting with, she suddenly realized.

  The food was excellent, and Daniel talked endlessly about his anthropology doings, giving her minute details that at one time would have been of interest to her. She did listen carefully to him, but she was more interested in the tone of his conversation than in the content. He was either trying to avoid having her ask him something, or he was so desperate for conversation that he positively rattled.

  “Daniel, when are you going to get to the point?” Amelia asked near the end of the meal when she thought she’d waited long enough. He looked at her in surprise. “You know, Daniel. This opportunity for financial gain that’s supposed to interest me—remember?”

  He gave her his most charming Irish grin. “Later, Amelia. I just want to enjoy this. Do you know how long it’s been since I had some decent food? This is really good.” He ate another forkful of carne adobada to show her.

  “Don’t tell me Kerry Dawn can’t cook.”

  “She does all right.”

  “Daniel, what are you doing here?”

  “I had to bring in a shard, and I just wanted to see you.”

  “Please,” Amelia said, holding up both hands in self-defense. “Go try that Irish bovine-processed hay residue on someone else, will you?”

  Daniel grinned. “You think you’ve got my number, don’t you?”

  “I know I have,” Amelia said, grinning in return and marveling that she could do it. The pain was gone—along with everything else she’d ever felt for him.

  “So how’s Kerry Dawn?” Amelia asked on the ride back to the McDades.

  “I wish you wouldn’t do that, Amelia,” Daniel said as he drove along the winding road. “You know, say both of her names like that in that tone of voice. She really admires you. It matters to her what you think.”

  Amelia couldn’t keep from laughing. “Daniel, please. Give me a break here.” She chuckled to herself at the thought of Kerry Dawn Stevenson caring in the least what Amelia Taylor Used-to-Be Quin
n thought. “So. How is she?” Amelia persisted. “Over the flu, is she?”

  “She’s fine,” Daniel said a bit testily. “Do you really like it out here? I mean, you’re looking fit enough—better than you have in a while—and those people are nice enough, but they’re hardly what you’re used to.”

  “What am I used to, Daniel? Young women on the prowl for good grades? So-called friends of yours who drop clam dip down the inside of my dress front and then ask me if they can retrieve it?”

  “At least they ask, Amelia,” he said a bit snidely.

  It was nearly dark, and flashes of lightning were visible on the horizon as another evening thunderstorm came down the Sangre de Cristos.

  “Actually,” Daniel went on a little too cheerfully, “Kerry is what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  Amelia barely heard him. The McDade house was dark, and “Louise” sat under one of the cottonwoods. She got out of the car immediately, her attention focused on that old green truck. Why was the house dark?

  “Amelia, wait,” Daniel said, getting out of the car with her. “I want to talk to you.” He caught up with her at the front door, but she went on inside without answering, flipping on the light switch by the door. Several small lights recessed in the niches and along the exposed ceiling beams came on, giving the room a warm glow. From time to time the windows brightened from the flashes of lightning in the approaching storm, and the wind was rising, causing the wind chimes to clatter on the porch. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and Amelia laid her purse down on the long table in the living room where Rita liked to play solitaire. She listened hard for some sound inside the house, hearing only the radio playing in the kitchen—yet another sad country-western song.

  “It looks as if you’ll be staying out here,” Daniel was saying, “so I can’t see any reason why you wouldn’t want to do it. You can use the money. I’ll pay a fair price, Amelia, but I won’t pay an inflated one. I don’t think you’d want that. It’s just the thing for us. I don’t want to enter into that kind of commitment again, and I—”

  “Mac?” Amelia suddenly called.

  “What?” he answered from somewhere in the house. “What?” he said again in the doorway. He had just taken a bath apparently, and he stood there in his jeans and stocking feet with a damp towel around his neck. His hair was wet, and his eyes were sad and tired.

  He didn’t find Adam, Amelia thought immediately. “Where is everybody?” she asked, completely forgetting about Daniel.

  Mac seemed in no hurry to acknowledge Daniel’s presence either. “Bobby called a little while ago. He wants to come out for the weekend. Pop and Rita went to get him.”

  “They didn’t have to do that,” Amelia protested, her eyes staring into his. He didn’t look away, and Daniel might have been a stick of furniture.

  “They know that, Amelia. Rita seemed to think you had enough aggravation.” This time his eyes went to where Daniel stood waiting. “Daniel,” Mac said, finally acknowledging her ex-husband’s presence. “It’s been a long time.”

  “Not—so long,” Daniel answered. Not long enough, is what Amelia thought he was about to say.

  “I’m going out for a while, Amelia,” Mac said, looking at her. “Pop and Rita should be back with Bobby by about ten or so. Tell them I’ll see them… when I see them.”

  “You’re going out?” Amelia said numbly. He’d only just gotten here.

  “I… need to raise a little hell. Ernie’s going to help me,” he said, giving her a small smile. “I brought you something—the usual. Small brown bag on the kitchen counter.” He turned toward the kitchen. “And your money,” he added over his shoulder. “It’s in an envelope on the kitchen table.”

  “Mac,” she said, following him a short way.

  “See you later, Amelia,” he said, picking up a shirt from the back of one of the kitchen chairs and slinging it on while he slid his boots closer to him. She stood watching for a moment, then she turned back to the living room and Daniel, her spirits drooping with the slamming of the back screen door. What did Mac do when he needed to “raise hell”? Drink? She’d never seen him drunk. Women? That, probably. She knew from that day at the rodeo and from her trip to Cowboy Heaven with him that there were plenty of women who would gladly raise hell with him.

  Mac…

  He couldn’t find his son, and he was miserable. She didn’t want him off raising hell. She wanted him here with her.

  She realized that Daniel was talking to her. “Daniel, what is it?” she said impatiently.

  “I just told you,” Daniel said irritably. “I don’t want to marry Kerry, but I want her to know I am committed to the relationship.”

  “What has that got to do with me?”

  “Amelia, will you pay attention! I want to buy the house. Kerry loves the place. The Taylor house fascinates her—she is a history major—the annals of the region, the ghost you and that wacky Miss Lilly think haunts the place. Kerry loves that sort of thing.”

  The information finally sank in. “You want to buy my family’s house for Kerry Dawn?” Amelia asked, her voice so deadly it made Daniel give an uncertain grin.

  “Yes,” he said pleasantly, but his eyes shifted away.

  “So you won’t have to marry her?”

  “I explained all that, Amelia—”

  “You want to bribe her with my family’s house so you can get out of marrying her?” Her voice was rising in a way Daniel had never heard in all the years of their marriage.

  “Amelia—” he began, his voice calm and reasonable.

  “Get out!” she cried.

  “Amelia, what is the problem? I’ll take the place off your hands. It’s not as if you and Bobby had children to leave it to.”

  “I have no children because you didn’t want them. You were my husband, and I—” She put her hands to her face in some effort at control. “Get out, Daniel,” she said more quietly, trying to cling to what little calmness she had left. “Now.”

  “Amelia, be reasonable.”

  “Get out, you—”

  Daniel paled at the epithet, and Pop would have washed her mouth out with soap. It was one she’d heard at the rodeo, and as far as she was concerned, it fit this situation just fine.

  “Amelia!” Daniel said, sounding shocked. “What’s happened to you!”

  It made her furious, and she grabbed the first thing that came into her hand—Rita’s pack of playing cards—hurling it at his head, the cards scattering impotently along the way. “Get out!”

  “Yes. I think I’d better,” Daniel said, moving toward the door. “Before you completely lose whatever ability for sane thinking you still have. We’ll talk about this later—”

  “No, we won’t!” Amelia cried. “The answer is no, Daniel. Never. You do not have a chance in hell of getting my house for that—”

  “All right!” Daniel snapped. “I’m going now, Amelia.”

  Amelia slammed the door closed behind him, leaning against the wall, her arms wrapped tightly around her body as the tears came. The pressure of her back on the light switch pushed the lights off, and she stood there, crying loudly in the dark, her sobbing muted by the thunder from time to time, then lost in the sudden downpour of rain. She made no effort to turn the lights back on again, and she continued to cry, finally moving into the kitchen to get a paper towel to wipe her nose and eyes. She fumbled along in the dark house, smelling the rain in the breeze that came in through the back screen door.

  “Oh,” she said softly, pressing the towel to her eyes. The radio still played, George Jones singing, “If Drinking Don’t Kill Me, Her Memory Will.”

  “Not now, George,” she whispered, switching the radio off, but her brief control slid into another sob. She reached blindly to pick up the brown paper bag Mac had left her, feeling the single Hershey’s kiss rolling around inside. She set the bag down again.

  “You crying in the dark too?” Mac said, making her jump violently. He was sitting in that same chair by t
he long window, his feet propped on the windowsill. She could see him as the lightning flashed.

  “What are you doing here?” she managed, wiping furiously at her eyes.

  “I live here.”

  “I—thought you—were going to—raise hell.” She bit down on her bottom lip because she couldn’t keep it from trembling.

  “I thought this might be a good place to start. Come here.”

  She didn’t move. She was appalled at the possibility that he had heard that exchange with Daniel, and even more appalled that he should see her the way she was now. She had cried over Daniel and his doings many times in the last days of her marriage to him, but she had never let anyone see her do it.

  “Come here,” he said again. He held out his hand, and she went, not remembering how she came to do it, reaching out blindly for him, climbing into his lap as his strong arms enfolded her. He smelled so good, felt so good to her.

  “Don’t ask me anything, all right?” she whispered urgently into his neck. “Don’t ask me—” She closed her eyes tightly, feeling the tears squeeze out and slide down onto her cheeks and his neck. He put his rough hand against her face, and she put her hand over his. “I won’t cry long,” she promised him, struggling to be quiet.

  “Shhhh,” he soothed her. “Little compañera.” And he let her cry as long as she needed to. There was nothing but her weeping and the rain and thunder and his warm arms wrapped around her, giving her a place to hide.

  “You heard—all that with—Daniel,” she whispered when she was able. “Didn’t you?”

  “It doesn’t matter—yes, I heard it. I’ve been sitting in here because my old man made me give my word I’d keep out of anything between you and Daniel. It—it wasn’t easy.”

  “I don’t see how—how Daniel and I—came to this,” she whispered brokenly. “I don’t—know him now. He’s so different. When—we were in school—in New York—my father was sick—dying. I had the flu. I couldn’t—get home. I’d been too—sick to work—and I didn’t have the money. Daniel—took me—on the bus. He had to hold me up—carry me. He sold his—jazz records—his Leadbelly records—to get the money—for the bus tickets. And now—how can he hurt me—and not even—know he’s done it?”